15 January - Flying & Listing

On the plane, who wants to slee? And movies on offer are predictably standard fare. The woman at the check in desk has lied to me. After begging her not to put me anywhere near a toilet, am exactly six seats away from one. Hope it won’t be bad. Maybe it was just the one trip that traumatised me a few years ago and no amount of personal daubing of perfume could cover the whiff coming through every time they opened the door.

Boredom creeping up, so a small list, the Top Ten travel list in no particular order but #1 is #1

- Buy it when you see it. Absolutely. 98% of times you will not see the same item appear again and you’ll be forever kicking yourself for not getting it. You’re not near your local well stocked branch of M&S or something. It’s gone.
- Don’t spend all your time haggling, it is so tedious and so unbecoming. Unless it costs more than at home, just get it and be done with it.
- Don’t take everything with you. Do give some business to the locals, they do sell suntan lotion, and anti mosquito creams and headache pills and nicer towels than the one you’re dragging with. - Do take your sunglasses, most holiday destinations are lived in by locals who have dark eyes and they don’t pay much attention to the needs of blue and green eyed people who have an absolute nightmare staring at the sun.
- Bring some clothes/shoes you’re happy to leave behind. Makes the world funkier and humbles you a bit. No, DKNY doesn’t mean s hit ‘there’ or GAP or whatever, in fact they manufacture ‘there’ but the locals are not impressed.
- Get your own guide/assistant, even if it is a local kid. He’ll keep away from you a posse of other hawkers/guides who would be tedious in their hassling. You’re his little cash cow now and he’ll protect you
- Drink as much champagne as you can before heading to third world as you won’t readily find it or have a thirst for it. Sort of doesn’t go?? But two weeks without is an unnecessary deprivation
- Bring absolutely everywhere a small inflatable bum cusion. Your spine is pretty precious and roads away from civilization have potholes the size of Mars, journeys are interminable and nearly all transport has no shock absorbers left
- Always, always have earplugs in. Even plain cotton discs will screen out the constant noise of traffic in places where all motorised vehicles have the following instuction on their rear 'Sound horn' or on on roads where everytime they hit a pothole the whole thing judders.
- Don't bother with malaria tablets

And here’s what I’d really like to do and cleary have no time for. May have to revise all times given in weeks down to mere days or go the other way round and do a month of each. Book a year out perhaps:

1 week standing still
1 week doing yoga non stop till I could do photo session in yoga mag
1 week sleeping
1 week reading, but not the papers
1 week without using a phone
1 week out of it. No memory
1 week going up Everest
1 week in Antarctica
1 week finally learning to snowboard
1 week horse riding
1 week jungle trekking
1 week fucking every which way or, failing that, being massaged
1 week thai boxing
1 week of silence
1 week cooking. No, not really but it sorts of looks like am not that focused on domestic activities. Wonder why? Should I be?